Rex Smith: A voice backs the enemies of the people

Journalism in the United States is mostly a local affair, practiced mainly in the newsrooms of 1,300 daily newspapers and about 1,800 TV stations, as well as the few hundred radio stations that still operate real news departments.

Consider the work of the New York Daily News and ProPublica, which together won a Pulitzer for uncovering abuse of eviction rules by the New York Police Department that led to the ouster of hundreds of people, most of them poor people from minority backgrounds, from their homes.

Or check out the reporting of a Pulitzer runner-up, the Houston Chronicle, which exposed cost-cutting by the state of Texas that arbitrarily took away special education services from tens of thousands of poor children.

[...] readers of this newspaper know our commitment to watchdog reporting, not least in recent articles linking political contributions to the awarding of New York state economic development grants, and exposing the dangers industrial pollution poses to drinking water in such places as Hoosick Falls.

Town governments that provide favors to people with the right political connections and police departments that ignore abuses of power are wise to note that our newsroom is looking over their shoulders.